RANT: Acronyms
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Nobody should EVER apologize for not understanding an acronym. The purpose of acronyms is -- present company exempted! -- to solidify an ingroup by being unintelligible to outsiders. Once, just to tease, I named a program, " MOTH" (=Myway Or The Highway) in a paper I submitted. The editor of the journal did not say, "WHAT IN GOD'S NAME ARE YOU DOING WITH THAT STUPID ACRONYM? And, once the article was accepted for publication, I did not have the chutzpah to admit that the name had been a joke. My shame.
ESCHEW ACRONYMS AND BUZZWORDS.
GESUNDHEIT!
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<-------------------------------------------------------- END RANT. END DANGER. Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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LOL!
BWAKR, Russ Gonnering Russell S. Gonnering, MD, FACS, MMM, CPHQ On Jan 28, 2009, at 9:28 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> > The purpose of acronyms is -- present company exempted! -- to solidify > an ingroup by being unintelligible to outsiders. If an `ingroup' can communicate concisely and accurately about things in the world that individuals not in the group cannot, then that group has achieved compression -- they are a community of experts. That's if their shared knowledge and context is large and complex. If not, then I agree that what has actually been achieved is encryption. Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
i'm going to enter the danger zone for a second...
On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 7:28 PM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote: > DANGER: RANT > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------->>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > > Nobody should EVER apologize for not understanding an acronym. The purpose > of acronyms is -- present company exempted! -- to solidify an ingroup by > being unintelligible to outsiders. Once, just to tease, I named a program, > " MOTH" (=Myway Or The Highway) in a paper I submitted. The editor of the > journal did not say, "WHAT IN GOD'S NAME ARE YOU DOING WITH THAT STUPID > ACRONYM? And, once the article was accepted for publication, I did not > have the chutzpah to admit that the name had been a joke. My shame. > > ESCHEW ACRONYMS AND BUZZWORDS. What about mispronouncing an acronym (I'm thinking of the times i get outed for mispronouncing "SQL")? And what about words, for that matter? And are there any cases where one may want to add a little bit of extra shaming/ingrouping? I guess, when should apologies be in order? > > GESUNDHEIT! > > <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<-------------------------------------------------------- > END RANT. END DANGER. > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University ([hidden email]) > > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels
For those who may not know, Dr. Mayer (aka Mayer-Kress), passed away on
January 25 after a long battle with cancer. The complexity community loses a great contributor and pioneer in the advancement of the field. For my part, he was one of the few established scientists who took seriously my ideas regarding the self-organized complex dynamics of bicycle pelotons and offered me much mentoring and encouragement. For that I owe him a great debt of gratitude and will miss him immensely. More about him in the following links: http://www.personal.psu.edu/~gxm21/ www.comdig.org Hugh Trenchard ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Matthew Francisco-2
I'm sure you've all heard of the writer who vowed to write acronym free documents (AFDs).
-- Russ Abbott _____________________________________________ Professor, Computer Science California State University, Los Angeles o Check out my blog at http://russabbott.blogspot.com/ On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 8:17 PM, Matthew Francisco <[hidden email]> wrote: i'm going to enter the danger zone for a second... ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
Russ,
Now, you see, this is exactly what I am talking about. To me a SQL is a ratty sort of creature who likes to bury nuts and has a long fuzzy tail.
Why are we suddenly talking about sqls?
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Matthew Francisco-2
M2c (My two cents)... We should stick with: acronyms are words (names,
see all the other -onyms) made from initials e.g. Scuba, while
intialisms are strings (not recognized as words) made from initials
e.g. FDIC. In either case, first usage should be spelled out unless it
has reached the vernacular or unless the audience is guaranteed to be
in the know. e.g. "the American Chemistry Council (ACC) voted today to
.... later the ACC condemned..." (There are over 70 different things
ACC could stand for in Wikipedia.). Anything else is just rude
(according to my English teacher).
Robert Matthew Francisco wrote: i'm going to enter the danger zone for a second... On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 7:28 PM, Nicholas Thompson [hidden email] wrote: ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
Thank you Robert. I agree. An acronym should be pronounceable. If we tended to refer to the (FDIC) as the "fuhdic", then it would be an acronym, right? FICA is an acronym because we pronounce it.
Nick .
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels
Marcus G. Daniels wrote:
> Nicholas Thompson wrote: >> >> The purpose of acronyms is -- present company exempted! -- to >> solidify an ingroup by being unintelligible to outsiders. > If an `ingroup' can communicate concisely and accurately about things > in the world that individuals not in the group cannot, then that group > has achieved compression -- they are a community of experts. That's > if their shared knowledge and context is large and complex. If not, > then I agree that what has actually been achieved is encryption. Yes, compression and encryption are "duals". They also both have a relationship to entropy... Also, acronym-speak are part of an emergent "pidgen" language and pidgen languages are known to have interesting and valuable properties that other "natural" languages do not. One property is a bit of exclusiveness... individuals not part of the culture (usually emergent at the interface between two or more cultures) where the pidgen language emerges have a hard time getting in, but "anyone" can join (usually) by investing time in hanging on the fringe of subcultures. In the case of FRIAM, not everyone is here because they are specifically "Complex Adaptive Systems" weenies. Acronyms also often carry more semantics than the thing they contract. FRIAM means more to most of us (especially those who never go for coffee on Friday morning) than Friday Antes Meridian Coffee Group (FriAM) does. Similarly few of us would ask someone "Can you give me the Uniform Resource Locator for that website?" and nearly as few would have a clue that they meant "URL". Nick, you are correct however <grin> when you claim to have Really Awesome Natural Talent (RANT). - Steve ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
You are funny Nick,
I was just going to write "thank you Robert", after vowing that I would never stick my head up out of the weeds on this thread. I think, though, that an acronym cannot merely be anything to which a pronunciation can be attached. It is supposed to a thing constructed like a real word, whose proununciation follows from the rules of the language in which it is written. Hence, scuba is an acronym, while SQL is not (we are requiring English pronunciation rules, not Hebrew or Arabic, here). I had never hear the term "sequelism" for expressions like AFD, but I was once told by a Scottish ship's first mate to refer to them as TLAs: Three Letter Abbreviations. Eric > Thank you Robert. I agree. An acronym should be pronounceable. If we tended to refer to the (FDIC) as the "fuhdic", then it would be an acronym, right? FICA is an acronym because we pronounce it. > > Nick . > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University ([hidden email]) > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Robert J. Cordingley > To: [hidden email];The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Sent: 1/28/2009 10:02:57 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] RANT: Acronyms > > > M2c (My two cents)... We should stick with: acronyms are words (names, see all the other -onyms) made from initials e.g. Scuba, while intialisms are strings (not recognized as words) made from initials e.g. FDIC. In either case, first usage should be spelled out unless it has reached the vernacular or unless the audience is guaranteed to be in the know. e.g. "the American Chemistry Council (ACC) voted today to .... later the ACC condemned..." (There are over 70 different things ACC could stand for in Wikipedia.). Anything else is just rude (according to my English teacher). > > Robert > > Matthew Francisco wrote: > i'm going to enter the danger zone for a second... > > On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 7:28 PM, Nicholas Thompson > <[hidden email]> wrote: > > DANGER: RANT > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------->>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > > Nobody should EVER apologize for not understanding an acronym. The purpose > of acronyms is -- present company exempted! -- to solidify an ingroup by > being unintelligible to outsiders. Once, just to tease, I named a program, > " MOTH" (=Myway Or The Highway) in a paper I submitted. The editor of the > journal did not say, "WHAT IN GOD'S NAME ARE YOU DOING WITH THAT STUPID > ACRONYM? And, once the article was accepted for publication, I did not > have the chutzpah to admit that the name had been a joke. My shame. > > ESCHEW ACRONYMS AND BUZZWORDS. > > > What about mispronouncing an acronym (I'm thinking of the times i get > outed for mispronouncing "SQL")? And what about words, for that > matter? > > And are there any cases where one may want to add a little bit of > extra shaming/ingrouping? I guess, when should apologies be in order? > > > GESUNDHEIT! > > <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<-------------------------------------------------------- > END RANT. END DANGER. > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University ([hidden email]) > > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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